Requiem for the Lost Ones
by Taneya
Summary: A remembrance of the many lost during the winter war. - step off the moon and fall into forever -
1. fall into forever

_**REQUIEM FOR THE LOST ONES**_

The Winter War. It had lasted through the whole season, going on through the cold and tainting the summer's rays with the blood of countless souls. It had stolen so many lives…so many beings, human and hollow and shinigami and crossbreed alike…so many friends and allies and poor foes that fate had pitted him against for no good reason. It weighed so heavily on his soul, his mongrel, chaotic mix of a soul…the warrior's spirit that had been broken and patched so many times to forge onward…it was completely gone now. His body was a mess of scars, and his mind was held together only by self-righteous ideals and the last shreds of will he possessed. So many lives…

_-step off the moon and fall into forever-_


	2. the bloody snow

Rukia. Torn to bloody pieces by a high-level kido cast by Gin. He had come to Ichigo's house in the night to kill him in cold blood. Rukia had cried out when she saw the silver-haired man standing above Ichigo's prone form, who was still in the hold of sleep. She had tried to cast a spell, which one, nobody would ever know. Rukia was dead before she got the first word of the kido out, her horrified cry having woken Ichigo just in time to see her body become an indistinguishable mass of bloody flesh. Gin had escaped, but with several holes in him and one less arm than he had had when he ripped a hole in the sky. Ichigo had escaped death, but with several holes in him and one less friend then he had gone to sleep having.

-_the bloody snow-_


	3. broken bow in the hand

Uryuu. Proud, noble Uryuu. Refusing to stay away from the front lines, following Ichigo always just a step behind. He argued with Ichigo, dragged him up out of his slumps and distracted him from his pain. He helped Ichigo recover from Rukia's death, even as he himself grieved. He was always available, to fight along with him and cover his back. The war brought them together as fast friends, not just rivals who understood one another. They were actually friends, in a way that no one really understood or wanted to. Uryuu had gone down in a truly astonishing way. But Uryuu…Uryuu had done it. He had faced down the ninth espada, the hollow that had haunted Rukia's nightmares for decades, the monster that had stolen the face of her beloved Lieutenant Kaien. Even when all others prepared to flee, as Ichigo had trembled from watching Zangetsu break apart in his hands, Uryuu stood and faced his demon. Yes, it was his demon now. When Orihime had once guessed at Uryuu's feelings towards Rukia, she hadn't been right at the time. But she would be.

Uryuu had only learned the story of Shiba Kaien _after_ Rukia's death, _after_ he had realized he loved her and _before_ he had gotten to tell her how he felt. He took the burning fury he felt and used it to fill the aching hole Rukia's death had left in his heart. But Uryuu hadn't expected to meet the fool creature on the field of battle, hadn't expected to see it puppeteering an army of possessed shinigami, hadn't expected to see it towering before Ichigo's weaponless body wearing the face that had been described to him as Rukia's hero and nightmare. Even faced with his new personal demon, more terrible than his grandfather's murderer, he did not waver. Uryuu stood slim, proud and tall, and drew his bow. Ignoring Ichigo crying for him to run, ignoring the surrounding waves of energy overflowing from other battles, he faced down the hell beast he had pictured so many times, had cursed more than he had ever cursed the shinigami. Uryuu had gathered his energy and all the power in the air around him, forming a small windstorm that caught up the sands of the dark desert. Even Ichigo's energy was swallowed up, leaving barely enough for him to cling to life. The Quincy drew his bow, and the arrow was red.

Most people believed that the Quincy were killed because they eliminated hollows completely, that this was causing the imbalance of the universe. This was true—it _was _the reason why the Quincy were the victims of mass genocide. However, the reasoning itself was not correct. The Quincy did not destroy hollows, they just didn't send them to soul society; instead they scattered their particles throughout the world until the soul could get its purified self back together. This process took a long time, which led to a slight imbalance. The flow of the world was too steady to be ruined by the spreading of spirit particles, but the shinigami had panicked and took preemptive action. This theory was developed by Urahara long after the war, mercifully too late for Uryuu to hear but sadly far too late to do the Quincies any good.

So, normal Quincy arrows did not eliminate hollows. What _no one_ knew (and no one would guess for decades after the fact) was that there was a very, very special Quincy arrow that _did_ destroy hollows completely. This unique arrow's properties made it take a nosedive on the electromagnetic spectrum and go from white-blue to the red of blood.

The arrow had been aimed, steadied, and fired with a silent apology to Ichigo. The ninth espada had stood no chance of dodging or blocking, its energy sucked up in the vacuum that had birthed the heavenly arrow. The hollow had recoiled, shrieking with rage as its doom sped towards it. The crimson arrow pierced through its forehead with power vastly superior to any spell or energy blast, dissolving the monster into nothing in the space of the second. No mercy had been given to this hollow, sentenced to the ultimate fate by the wrath of one who had lost their love. It was doomed to utter nothingness, the total destruction of its 'self'. Uryuu had momentarily possessed the power of a god, sentencing the monster to a face worse than hell and delivering the final judgment with his own hand—his own bow and life-ending arrow.

The ninth espada wasn't the only one who fell by Uryuu's arrow. Ichigo watched in horror as his best friend lifted his head to the sunless sky of Hueco Mundo, his mouth forming words that could not be heard. The last of the Quincies—the true last, his father having died in an immensely destructive suicidal move that took out about a fifth of Aizen's army at once—stumbled forward and fell to the sand, unable to catch himself. Every last bit of his energy had gone into the structure and firing of that arrow, and now it was gone. His enemy was too, though, and that was what mattered. Uryuu vaguely heard Ichigo's cracked voice screaming his name, and the smooth falling of sand as his best friend tried to reach him. In his mind, he apologized again. Then he promised that he would say hello for Ichigo when he met Rukia. He would be seeing her soon. Finally, Uryuu simply closed his eyes and died on the sands of the eternal desert, shrouded in the darkness of a sunless world.

_-a broken bow in the hand of god-_


	4. knock the black moon down

Zangetsu. A piece of his soul. Getsuuga Tensho. Moon-fang piercer of the heavens. A glorious name. His most powerful attack, one he used over and over after learning it, not even thinking about it after it had been accomplished the first time. Zangetsu. His partner, his friend and priceless assistant. Zangetsu knew him better than Ichigo himself did. He didn't even think about Zangetsu most of the time, too busy running blindly after captured friends and pounding his enemies into the dirt. Sure he was concerned when Zangetsu broke, but mostly he was too busy fearing for his life with the loss of his only means to defend himself. And Zangetsu really was his _only_ way to defend himself—to attack, to destroy and protect, he needed his sword for all of those.

When Zangetsu was gone, he had no idea what to do. When the ninth espada had touched his blade, the solid metal had broken to pieces and been sucked into the hollows gaping maw. Instantly, all of Ichigo's courage fled. He trembled, sweated, gasped with fear and the horror of the terrible hole he felt in his soul. A place he hadn't known existed much less was full was now suddenly empty. Ichigo heard his hollow scream within him, calling out for his only companion in the pouring rain of Ichigo's inner world. Ichigo's body wracked with spasms as his white clone tore apart his inner world, frantically searching for the old man that was Ichigo's sword. The ninth espada had knocked him down and bloody with a single hit, turning its attention to the bigger threat: Uryuu.

Ichigo had watched in horror as his best friend faced the hollow that had just taken him down like he was no more than a fly. He felt the horrible pull on his soul as Uryuu gathered energy for what would be the most splendid move in living history. He watched as the last Quincy fell, the end of his kind. He trembled from his hollow's frantic searching and the shock of Zangetsu's loss, as well as Uryuu's surreal demise. Ichigo lifted his head with the last of his strength and screamed his grief to the empty heavens.

He was not found for hours. He heard battles continue to rage on in the distance while he simply lay on the sand. He made sporadic attempts to get to Uryuu, to just to reach him. He succeeded, not long before he was found. He managed to pull himself to Uryuu's side, but all he could do at that point as just lie beside him. He stared at the dead face of his friend, telling himself over and over that he was _dead_ no matter how much the Quincy looked like he was just sleeping. Sleeping peacefully…but no, his peace was found in death. Uryuu's glasses were gone, blown off his face at some point during the creation or firing of his magnificent arrow. Ichigo stared at the familiar but strange face, not wanting to think about his death but trying to avoid thinking about Zangetsu even more. Uryuu was his friend, but Zangetsu was a piece of his _soul_. And he had just lost them both. The fragile balance between him and his hollow was crumbling, too, with every second his look-alike tore the rain-drenched skyscrapers apart. And so, he did the only thing he could think of.

He remembered his mother.

He couldn't bear to think about Rukia, or Uryuu or Zangetsu. They were all too painful, the wounds too fresh and somehow that much more real because of they were so recent. So, he remembered the woman he had spent the past six years trying to put out of his mind. He didn't think about the missing part of his soul, or his best friend, or the girl that had given him the power to protect. He thought of none of them, picturing his mother's smiling face in his mind. When her smile wavered, he resorted to her bloody, rain-drenched corpse. That was an image that could not be forgotten, much less simply dismissed.

He dwelled on his mother's death, until he was suddenly caught up in a strong pair of black clad arms. He gasped, and looked around frantically. When he spotted the masked face of one of the shinigami retrieval squad members, he relaxed slightly. He looked to his left, and saw Uryuu's limp body next to him, both of them having been gripped around their middles and pressed against the side of the retrieval squad member. He felt his left side being pressed against Uryuu's right, and whenever their bare hands brushed together he felt his friend's deathly cold skin. The contact made him feel vaguely sick, knowing it was his best friend's _corpse_, but Ichigo had nothing in his stomach to throw up. This was the end of a five day assault on Los Noches, and Soul Society's forces had been spread all over the desert. It had been days since Ichigo last ate, so his belly was rather empty. He also very much doubted that the retrieval officer had food on him, either. Or her. They wore masks and this person didn't have any discernable breasts, so Ichigo couldn't tell if his rescuer was male or female. They were a weird lot, but this one was saving his life.

Retrieval squad officers were sent out routinely, to collect corpses of the fallen and those too injured to fight. The squad had been founded by Yoruichi, returned from her century of exile to fight in the Winter War. She had, in a stroke of brilliance, come up with the idea of a squad entirely dedicated to retrieving the gravely injured from battle so they could be healed, and not have scores of good warriors idiotically killed by blood loss. Ukitake had suggested that they retrieve the bodies of the dead as well, so that their corpses could not be desecrated or used against Soul Society in some twisted way. The Flash Goddess had built on that idea, saying that these special officers would just collect every shinigami they saw that was unable to fight, without checking if they were alive or dead. It would just slow them down and give the enemy a chance to kill the retrieval officers, or it could delay medical treatment for the injured. However, then came a rather annoying problem. How would regular shinigami outrun arrancar? The innate talent for shunpo wasn't widely spread, and even the slowest of the arrancar could probably outpace a good proportion of shinigami. Such a predicament.

The solution?

Urahara Kisuke has always been good at coming up with out-there ideas, and sometimes this worked in Soul Society's favor. Kisuke had created a device that redirected all of a soul's energy into shunpo, making every retrieval squad member able to outrun all but the fastest of warriors but unable to attack worth anything. The device could be clipped onto the arm like an archer's armguard, and involved a lot of complicated processes that no one but the twelfth division nerds could figure out when Kisuke tried to explain them. The members of the retrieval squad were handpicked by Yoruichi for being the worst suited for fighting and the best for retrieving the bloody bodies of the fallen. She personally trained them, too, and as a result they were quite the strange bunch. They insisted on wearing all black and covering their faces and hair, for no discernable reason.

But Ichigo was getting off track. Maybe that was a good thing, but his dazed, wandering thought processes were starting to scare him a little. However, it was infinitely better than thinking about the gaping hole in his spirit and the turmoil in his heart. Anything was better than that. Anything would have been better than losing Zangetsu.

_-knock the black moon down-_


End file.
